Cabot Phillips

So remember, as part of the effort to evade American sanctions.

Venezuela has deployed a so-called dark or shadow fleet of oil tankers.

These ships often sail outside of legal shipping lanes and deploy false flags, a lot of times using fraudulent paperwork to hide their country of origin, in this case, Venezuela.

Now, under international law, those ships are considered stateless vessels, and that makes them subject to search by the US and others.

Now, back in December, one of those ships called Bella 1 sailed from Iran to pick up oil in Venezuela.

When it was ordered to stop by the U.S.

Coast Guard, it fled and set off a weeks-long chase.

By Wednesday, the Bella 1 had made it to the North Atlantic between Iceland and Britain, and here is where it gets very interesting.

While on the run, the ship began displaying a Russian flag.

The sailors reportedly hastily painted a Russian flag actually on the side of the ship, and it changed its official registration to, you guessed it, Russia.

Moscow reportedly urged the U.S.

then to stop its pursuit and went as far as deploying a submarine and other vessels to escort it, presumably it was going to a Russian port.

But despite those objections from Moscow, yesterday morning, the Coast Guard, assisted by Navy gunships and anti-submarine craft, successfully seized the vessel once and for all.

Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt with more.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the crew of that vessel are now, quote, under full investigation and criminal charges will be pursued against all culpable actors.

For their part, Moscow claimed the vessel had been given lawful permission to fly under their flag.

They slammed the seizure as, quote, piracy, saying, quote, no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered in the jurisdictions of other states.

But the Trump administration is clearly not slowing down.

Hours after taking the Bella, the Pentagon announced the seizure of yet another illegal tanker,

This one heading for Venezuela and this time in the Caribbean.